Meet the Fam

Thanks for stopping by! Let me take a moment to introduce myself and the key players in my life and (much to their delight) on this blog.

This is me, Michelle.

circa 2012, when I was five years younger and my hair was five inches longer

I tried to find a photo of me without my husband or my kids or one where I wasn’t wearing a hat of some sort but I couldn’t find one.

Makes sense though, because I wear many.

I’m:
a mama
a wife
a daughter
a sister
a personal assistant to the other three people in my family
a maid
a cook purveyor of take-out
a chauffeur
a therapist (mostly to myself)
a family planner
an archivist
and a veteranarian to one very fat and very diabetic cat.

For the past five years, I’ve also worn a hat I never thought I’d be wearing: writer.

I started this blog on a whim in March 2012, and within a year was gathering new reading and writing friends and was honored to be part of a New York Times Best Selling humor anthology. The next year I had another humorous essay in the second book in the series.

In March 2014, a dream I never knew was in my realm of possibility came true and I began writing for Entertainment Weekly — which has been my weekly bible for the past 16 years — where I get to recap and write about my favorite TV shows.

I know. Pretty good gig.

Lesson, kids: Even if you spend 16 years making grilled cheese sandwiches and driving carpools, you just never know where life will take you.

Signing books and drinking wine. Two of my very favorites.

Of all the things to know about me, the most important is that my family is my world, and I love them fiercely.

January 2017

That’s my long-suffering and fabulous husband, whom I met my freshman year of college, and our girls, who in this blog are sometimes referred to as “Thing 1” and “Thing 2,” and who, despite the 300 miles that college has put between them, are the best of friends.

We’re a pretty tight group.
And by tight I mean weird.

Unapologetically.

This blog was started on a whim, as a place to unload all the conversations I had with myself that were cluttering my brain.

It’s a place for me to reflect, to (over)share, to ridicule the celebrity life I’m a long time obsessor over, and to observe.

Eh, who am I kidding, it’s a place for me to do something other than fold laundry and put away groceries.

Michelle -Thank you! I think we all become reluctant members of the same club when our kids fly the nest, don’t we? Glad they resonated with you! Thanks for reading!! 🙂ReplyCancel

Marlen Miret -Loved your letters to you daughter going away. Felt like i wrote them.ReplyCancel

Elena Alvarado -I was sent the blog post of letters to your daughter by my best friend of 30 some odd years. I’m a single mom who lives in Pennsylvania. My son is almost 23 (If I let him live to that age, each year it can be struggle) and he left the nest at 18 to join the Army. He now resides in Texas which is like 8 bajillion states away from me, doing his own thing and loving life.
I had to let him go. Your first letter hit me hard. As he was boarding the bus headed for Fort Benning in 2012 I was screaming that exact sentiment in my head. I swore he could hear me.
Thank you for writing straight from my heart. Thank you.
ElenaReplyCancel

Michelle -Thank YOU for taking the time to share this with me. It makes me happy to know when my words touch others! I cannot imagine how it will feel one day to live a bajillion states away from one of my girls (right now the 280 miles is rough enough). I’m sure it will happen as they have big dreams — which ironically we’ve encouraged 😛 — and happily living the life they want to live is what we’ve always hoped for them. Guess we forgot the part about us not being with them. 🙁 Hope you stick around the blog! Thanks for reading!ReplyCancel